Red Sox sign Napoli, already looking ahead to Patriots-Texans

The Red Sox had been relatively quiet this offseason until Monday, the first day of the winter meetings, when the team made their first real splash by signing free agent 1B/C Mike Napoli. WEEI.com’s Rob Bradford was the one to break the story. The deal is for three-years and $39 million, with $13 million being split evenly between the three years.

With the signing the Red Sox now have four catchers on their roster in Napoli, Jarrod Saltalamacchia, Ryan Lavarnway and David Ross, which opens the door for the team to deal away either Saltalamacchia or Lavarnway. The consensus among the media as well as members of the organization is it will be Saltalamacchia who could have significant value out on the market.

The Patriots wrapped up their fourth straight AFC East title in Sunday’s victory over the Dolphins. It was their fourth straight and ninth in the last ten years. Much of the discussion on sports radio was how bad the AFC East has become, seemingly getting worse and worse each year. The Bills, Dolphins and Jets don’t seem likely to give the Patriots any competition in the near future either.

With their next two games against the Texans (next Monday night) and the 49ers (Sunday Dec. 16), two of the best teams in the league, it will become clear just how good the Patriots are and play a significant role in determine their seeding for the playoffs. The team reportedly will sign former wide receiver Donte Stallworth Tuesday as they are lacking depth at the wide receiver position with Julien Edelman going down with a foot injury Sunday.

Also something to note, WBZ-TV’s Steve Burton had a report out of no where last night stating the NHL had made significant progress to end the lockout, which could be lifted by today or tomorrow. No one really seemed to backup Burton’s claim. We’ll see how it plays out, but it is hard to imagine he is right, although everyone hopes in fact he is.

Published by Bruce Allen

While the games against Texans and 49ers are important as far as playoff seedings, I STILL won’t put too much stock into what they “Tell Us” about the Patriots (win OR lose)…All you have to do is go back to 2010…

Patriots HAMMERED the Jets on Dec. 6th by the score of 45-3….just a few weeks later the Jets knocked Pats out of the playoffs 28-21 …what did the 45-3 game “tell us”?…beats me. For years BB and Brady have been saying each game is it’s own separate entity. It just gets blown off as “coach-speak”…it also happens to be TRUE.